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Global Mobile News Round-up – Week 12th May 2014

By May 16, 2014News Roundup

Global_News_MEF Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.


 Global News Stories

Yahoo Acquires Self-Destructing Messaging App Blink, Which Will Soon Disappear

TechCrunch

Blink, a mobile messaging application that lets users share self-destructing messages, has been acquired by Yahoo, TechCrunch has confirmed. The app competed in an increasingly crowded space alongside Snapchat, of course, but also newer entrants like Frankly, Confide, Wickr, and others. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Snapchat Has Flubbed On Privacy Again — You Should Really Be Using This App Instead

Business Insider 

In case you need another reminder, the best app for sending NSA-proof self-destructing messages is called Wickr, and it beats the pants off of Snapchat. Snapchat was in the news this week with a bit of a faceplant— the company can no longer legally claim messages sent through its app actually disappear, which seems to circumvent the entire motivation one might have for using it.

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smartphones-and-tablets

US mobile commerce to hit $293 billion by 2018

Mobile Money Revolution

We just love to shop on our mobiles in bed, and on the train, and in the toilet. Yes, mobile online commerce is flying. Forrester says the market will reach $293 billion by 2018, up from $114 billion this year. That makes mobile just under 40 per cent of e-commerce sales ($294 billion this year) in 2014. The majority of sales will be driven by tablets – $76 billion this year, compared to $38 billion on smartphones.

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Paids apps’ days are numbered, packaged goods will endure – EA CFO

Games Industry Biz

Electronic Arts has taken the “fewer, bigger, better” approach to game publishing and tweaked it to “fewer, bigger, better, longer.” Speaking at the Wedbush 2014 Transformational Technologies Management Access Conference today, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen talked about the strategic change that has taken place at the publisher since his arrival in mid-2012.

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Mobile social helps drive unprecedented jump in social media ad revenues: report

Mobile Marketer

Growth in mobile social and social native advertising are driving the largest year-over-year jump in social media ad revenues, with the total spend expected to be $8.4 billion in 2014, according to a new report out today from BIA/Kelsey.

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The Xiaomi MiPad is a plastic iPad mini for Android lovers

The Verge

The cheapest iPad mini with Retina display costs $399, but today it’s being undercut by a competitor that goes to great lengths to emulate everything about Apple’s popular tablet. Xiaomi’s MiPad has the same 7.9-inch screen size and even the same 2048 x 1536 resolution, while its color scheme, shape, and design are all evocative of Apple’s iPhone 5C lineup. In fact, Xiaomi openly acknowledges that it’s using the same materials as on the “unapologetically plastic” 5C. Its customized MIUI interface running atop Android seems to take similar inspiration from the look of iOS 7.

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Messaging Apps: Growth And Monetization Trends For Mobile’s Fastest-Growing Platforms

Business Insider 

Over the past decade, as the mobile industry has grown to billions of users worldwide, messaging has risen to the top of the product heap. WhatsApp and other messaging services could become the next platforms to reach 1 billion users within a year or two.
But it’s more than just free instant messaging that’s driving the boom. Really, it’s more than even messaging. Like social networks before them, these apps are becoming the hubs for everything global smartphone audiences do on mobile

Read More…(report)


‘Come to mobile after you’ve had success elsewhere’

Gamasutra

Just over a year ago, British developer Mike Bithell was happy to see so many other developers shifting gear to mobile — it meant that the PC and console doors were left wide open for everyone else.

Today the developer made his first leap onto mobile, with an iPad port of Thomas Was Alone facilitated by the team as Bossa Studios. At what point then, did Bithell decide that a mobile version might be a good idea after all?

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Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.


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